Would you ‘star’ your friends on Facebook?

When I signed into Facebook Saturday night, it suggested I star some of my friends so I could stay up-to-date on their doings. Not surprisingly, the people it suggested I star were the people I stalk, er, interact with most-often.

Initially, I thought this new feature was a great idea. At this point, I have a fairly substantial friend list so I miss updates from many people I really want to know about, yet catch every last photo and quote someone else posts (I don’t hide their feeds, thinking there could be something interesting on the horizon).

So I starred about 20 people — it was a mixture of friend-friends, colleagues and readers I find funny, interesting and/or informative.

Within minutes (literally) I regretted my decision. The updates were so constant, I couldn’t keep up. And, really, did I need to know that Jane Doe had just liked John Doe’s photo?

No.

Tracy feels the same. She came in to work this morning and announced she was “unstarring” me. The updates were annoying, and constant, she said.

I was thinking the same way when i chose 10-15 people to star…. i also quickly regretted my decision… my phone was going off constantly notifying me that one of my starred friends had just updated their status/liked a photo/comment on this, that or the other thing…. i would have anywhere between 15-20 notificaitions in a given day… i very quickly unstarred all the people i had origionally starred

Agreed. I did this for my immediate family member’s and maybe 3 of my close friends and within 15 minutes I wanted to go crazy. So I already went back on fb and undid it all. Don’t do it; you’ll regret it.

I, too, starred about 20 friends until I started getting notifications every five minutes on my phone about updates that I didn’t really care about. I immediately unstarred all my friends and if I want to see what they’re up to, I’ll just go to their individual page.

You can decide what updates you receive from the ‘starred’ friends (status updates, photos, games, comments & likes, music & videos and other activity). I was also overwhelmed with all of the updates but when I figured out I can edit what I was notified on I felt much better.

If you look at the top right side of the page that is displayed on your list, you can select the types of updates that you receive on that page, and you can turn off notifications in your settings for that list. I have been using lists for about three years. I did the “close friends” but I don’t actually use it — instead I use the custom lists I’ve made. In fact, I have one called, “Alphabetical” which I use quite frequently. The news feed only lists people with whom I interact frequently, and it lists the stories with the most traffic. My Alphabetical list shows everything from everyone I am friends with in the most recent to oldest stories. Each list allows you to select the sort of updates you will see, so I find these lists quite useful.

I use the ‘close friends’ and other special permissions lists on FB to keep MY posts to only allow certain people to view certain things. It is also great to block entire groups of people from seeing my posts. (Work people in a work list, family in other, etc.)

And then I have my ‘dead zone’, people on my friends list who it’s just easier to keep them & block them from everything, rather than being a witch about it. They’re on my friends list, but can’t see anything at all. No blood, no foul.

I never ‘starred’ anyone though, I added them manually to each permissions list they’re on. (whichever list I want – some people are on multiple lists.)

I can blanket-change my subscriptions to people so I only see certain status updates and my iphone is set to NOT allow ‘push’ notifications of anything from FB so I’m not bothered via cell phone.

When you make a post online (NOT mobile fb, just computer), you can choose which lists see which posts.

YOU control what you see, it just takes a bit to figure out how to see only what you want :)